Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Turned a Blockbuster Exhibition into a Digital Growth Opportunity

The challenge

MFAH had a major exhibition with broad public appeal and a larger-than-usual media budget. The opportunity was clear: build a digital campaign that could match the scale of the moment while staying aligned with traditional, out-of-home, and grassroots efforts.

Capacity needed to do more than drive awareness and ticket interest. The campaign also created space to test new channels, reach Spanish-speaking audiences more intentionally, and bring the exhibition experience to life beyond static gallery imagery.

The approach

Capacity built a multi-channel digital strategy across Meta and Google, including paid search, Performance Max, and Demand Gen. The campaign also expanded into Reddit, Spotify, and programmatic display, giving MFAH more ways to reach people wherever they were online.

Each channel played a clear role. Google captured high-intent demand and became the strongest revenue driver. Meta helped convert engaged audiences and gave the campaign room to test more dynamic creative. Reddit added meaningful attributed revenue and purchases. Programmatic Display and Spotify expanded awareness at scale, contributing millions of impressions across the full campaign.

Because the exhibition had strong cultural relevance for Spanish-speaking audiences in Houston, Spanish-language advertising became an important part of the strategy. Capacity ran dedicated Spanish-language creative where the platforms and assets allowed, including via Meta, Google Demand Gen, Spotify, and programmatic display.

Reaching Spanish-speaking audiences

The Spanish-language campaign became one of the most important takeaways from the effort. MFAH partnered with an advertising agency that specializes in reaching Hispanic/Latino audiences to ensure that the advertising campaign and the Spanish-language content were thoughtful and persuasive.

Although most media dollars went toward English-language audiences, spend directed to Spanish-speaking audiences delivered strong engagement relative to spend. Across Meta, Spotify, and programmatic display, Spanish-language ads delivered engagement and click-through rates comparable to English-language creative while also driving meaningful website traffic and purchase activity. On Meta, Spanish-language audiences generated healthy conversion rates at efficient costs, and programmatic display saw Spanish-language ads match English-language ads in click-through rate.

For a first dedicated Spanish-language advertising effort, the results showed clear potential. The campaign helped MFAH reach audiences with more culturally relevant messaging, support measurable ticket sales outcomes, and expand beyond its traditional audience base.

It also started a larger conversation with MFAH: how should the museum continue engaging these audiences beyond one exhibition? Spanish-speaking and Hispanic audiences are not relevant only for Hispanic art programming. They are part of MFAH’s broader community, and the campaign helped bring more of them into the museum’s digital audience ecosystem.

That learning is already influencing future planning, including how MFAH thought about World Cup tourism campaigns and Spanish-language search behavior as Houston prepared to host World Cup audiences.

Note: The MFAH does not have a Spanish-language version of its website, which limited the full user experience. Instead, on the Museum’s Frida exhibition page, a Spanish version was available through a toggleable tab, and all programming and related content also was available in Spanish. Still, that became an important learning for future campaigns: when paid media invites Spanish-speaking audiences in, the destination experience should meet them with the same level of intention.